Islands and Idiot Glee @ Crescent Ballroom 02/15/12

Last night at the Crescent Ballroom felt a lot like a high school dance. This cool Canadian indie pop band that not many people were familiar with played a good mix of fast and slow songs that were great for dancing for the most part, yet most of the crowd sat still. It's obviously not cool to dance, but one brave girl shouted at singer/guitarist Nick Thorburn, asking his permission to do so.

Thorburn seemed a little puzzled that she needed to ask in the first place. "Yeah, kick the seats over. Shit is so weird," he said. He was one of four well-dressed musicians sporting button down shirts and blazers that put the rest of the crowd to shame because Islands is classy like that.

Now, in the audience's defense, Islands played a lot of songs from A Sleep & A Forgetting, which is only a day old. Thorburn said he started writing it on Valentine's Day of last year and thought it was appropriate to release it exactly a year later. The album is pretty sad. What break up songs aren't? It isn't a miserable kind of sad, it's actually a rather beautiful album. PHOTOS BY MELISSA FOSSUM.